Hedman, Point among top performers for Lightning in Game 6 of Cup Final

Who played well in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final? Sometimes it's easy to tell, sometimes it isn't. NHL.com graded the players in the 2-0 victory by the Tampa Bay Lightning against the Dallas Stars at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 2004. Here are the players and trends that stood out the most:

Honor roll

Victor Hedman (Lightning) -- The defenseman was one of the best players in the Final and
won the Conn Smythe Trophy
voted as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He's the first defenseman to win the Conn Smythe since Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks was a unanimous vote for the trophy in 2015. Hedman led all players with 25:01 of ice time in Game 6. He scored 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 25 postseason games.

Nikita Kucherov (Lightning)-- The forward led the postseason with 34 points (seven goals, 27 assists) in 25 games. Kucherov assisted on Brayden Point's power-play goal to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Brayden Point (Lightning) -- The forward scored on the Lightning's second power play of the game, which ended up being the game-winning goal, setting a Tampa Bay record for goals (14) in a postseason (Tyler Johnson scored 13 goals in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs). Point scored 33 points (14 goals, 19 assists) in 23 postseason games, second to Kucherov.
Blake Coleman (Lightning) -- Coleman was a Stars fans growing up in Plano, Texas, about 20 minutes northwest of Dallas. On Monday, the forward scored off a pass from Cedric Paquette to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead 7:01 into the second period. Coleman, acquired in a trade with the New Jersey Devils on Feb. 26, scored 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in 25 postseason games.

Andrei Vasilevskiy (Lightning) -- He didn't have a lot of work through the first two periods, but the Tampa Bay goalie was strong in the third period, when the Stars took 14 of their 22 shots on goal. Vasilevskiy got his first shutout of this postseason.
Anton Khudobin (Stars)-- The Dallas goalie didn't have much help until midway through the third period. The Stars spent more than half the game trying to defend the Lightning in their own zone; Khudobin saved 27 of 29 shots in Game 6.

Stock watch

Pat Maroon (up) -- Maroon,
who won the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues last season
, hoisted it again Monday. He is the third player in the NHL expansion era to win the Cup in consecutive seasons with different teams (Claude Lemieux won it with the New Jersey Devils in 1995 and with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996; Cory Stillman won it with the Lightning in 2004, then the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. The Cup was not awarded in 2005.)
Appreciation for Rick Bowness (up) -- The Stars coach, who was a Lightning assistant from 2013-18, was getting a lot of hugs from their players in the handshake line following Game 6. It was a great show of respect for Bowness, who coached the Stars to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2000.
Lightning's start (up) -- The first 10 minutes wasn't great for either team, but once Point scored for the Lightning on their first power play, they took over. They outshot the Stars 11-4 in the first period, and outside of Victor Hedman's interference penalty in the final 1:24 of the period, it couldn't have gone much better for them.
Dallas power play (down) -- The Stars were 0-for-3 in Game 6 and their power play was an issue throughout the Cup Final. Dallas was 1-for-19 in the six games.
Stars top forwards (down) -- Jamie Benn didn't have a shot on goal in Game 6. Alexander Radulov, playing on the top line with Benn, had one. Tyler Seguin, on the second line with Corey Perry and Joel Kiviranta, had three shots, two in the final five minutes of the third period. With everything on the line, the Stars needed more from those players.

What we learned

Lightning kept at it
Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said he wasn't concerned about the Lightning's state of mind after losing 3-2 in Game 5 in double overtime. As he said, their game had been pretty consistent, and it was back at full force for Game 6. The Lightning were 6-0 in the game after a loss in the playoffs. You can't respond much better than that, and it earned the Lightning the Cup.
Stars ran out of gas
The Stars were flat from the start until about halfway through the third period. They took two first-period penalties; the Lightning scored a power-play goal on the second one. Dallas had five players who were unfit to play (goalie Ben Bishop, defenseman Stephen Johns, forwards Blake Comeau, Radek Faksa and Roope Hintz). Injuries and fatigue caught up with them, but it was a heck of a run for the Stars.